Genocide describes a fairly wide set of circumstances. The genocides you describe are of the extreme variety. The elimination of much smaller segments of the population of a certain people can also be called genocide. Now, who’s the stupid one?

Tim: So I guess the genocide was performed by their own people to wipe themselves of the face of the earth. RCMP have statistics that the women were killed by their own people done in 2015. Trudeau is making a mockery of their death for his own purpose of trying to get elected.

“So, the disappearance of +/- 1000 women and girls (statistically many would have been “disappeared” by husband, immediate family or persons known to them) constitutes “genocide”?”

And we don’t even know how many of those have *deliberately* disappeared, as was the case here in Vancouver during the Willie Pickton incident. It didn’t get much fanfare, but they actually did find at least a couple of those ‘missing’ women alive and well…and begging investigators not to use their names or tell any of their family where they were (seems that a married mother with children, in one example, just didn’t want all her new friends and family to know she was an ex-prostitute from Vancouver. Go figure…).

“How can anyone in their right mind compare this to the atrocities that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc committed?”

Obviously they can’t, and that it what make this so irritatingly stupid. Not only are all of us supposedly ‘complicit’ in this mass-murder, they also reportedly want “tougher sentences” for people who kill aboriginal women.

(wait….WHAT? So who is going to tell all those white, Asian, Hispanic etc women that their lives are no longer as important as as the lives of indigenous women? Holy crap! …what an IDIOTIC idea!)

“A reasonable PM, reviewing the draft report, would have said, “This is over the top. It destroys the credibility of the report. Fix it.””

Yes, and that’s the icing on the cake, right there: he originally refused to use the word “genocide”, then was *pressured into it*. He had it right at first, then caved in at the first opportunity.

The call for tougher sentences is particularly puzzling, since the same report refers to the over-representation of indigenous people in our prisons and calls for more sentencing option for indigenous offenders. Yet, as the RCMP report released a few years ago, the majority of indigenous female homicide victims were killed by indigenous men (not surprising, since almost all female homicide victims are killed by past or current domestic partners, and most people choose partners of their own race. The two recommendations contradict each other.

“Yet, as the RCMP report released a few years ago, the majority of indigenous female homicide victims were killed by indigenous men ”

I wonder if that fact was mentioned anywhere in the report (or even discussed during the inquiry itself)?

Better still, the ‘solve rate’ for the murders of native women is virtually identical to the rate for all other women (another fact that we have been aware of for years)…so where exactly is this “genocide” they speak of?

Genocide is the most serious of accusations. If the PM admits to genocide, his government must follow through with recourse or the integrity of Canada’s legal system is in question. Will former senior government officials, those still alive, be called before tribunal?

Trudeau had to be thinking for himself again to exhibit such extreme incompetence. No way could the government be in any position to comment on the report as legal guidance would take more than a day to obtain (likely months). This is Trudeau ‘s biggest blunder to date.

Genocide requires a criminal justice response. Mulroney, Campbell, Chretien, Martin, Harper, and Trudeau (himself, since according to the MMIWG report, it is ongoing) and their Indigenous Affairs ministers have to be hauled before a “Nuremburg”-like proceeding.

Once it is a genocide, “heads” have to roll, and the living perpetrators have to be held to account.

Does anyone believe that the use of the word genocide here is anything other than a ploy for political or publicity advantage? To paraphrase the great W. Kinsella, when everything is genocide, nothing is genocide. This report will be met with a general silence with many muttering, sotto voce, “Whatever”.

I can hear the words of my university English composition prof. He talked about how key it is to have and maintain credibility with your audience, and the problems that arise in that regard when you resort to hyperbole and overstate your case.

231 recommendations, but each of them “mandatory”? Really? Could you not have pared that down just a bit? Piled on top of the, what was it, 94 that we got with the Residential Schools report?

The word “genocide” has been so overused and misused by activists of various stripes in recent years that it’s ceasing to have any effect on people anymore. Besides which, this particular use of the word just doesn’t pass the common sense smell test.

In that sense, I really wonder whether the very well-meaning authors of this report did themselves a disservice by using such overloaded language and overreaching in their demands.

I honestly think the report could have been much more effective if they would have limited themselves to a few key, core demands. Instead, they risk having a lot of Canadians just tune out. There are a lot of people out there who simply tune out when they hear a certain hyperbolic “SJW-speak”.

I suspect many of these Conservatives would feel differently if it was their white ancestors who were given disease laden blankets to kill them off and and then systematically abused for a few hundred years. Trying to stick to Warren’s rules is very difficult for me on this topic as I would love to tell Gord et al what I really at I really think of them.

Oh go ahead, fill your boots. Collective self-flagellation can be sweet. Just don’t tell yourself you are doing anything to make young aboriginal women any safer.

There was a guy from an aboriginal community here during the discussion about the John A. MacDonald statues who was very critical of modern national aboriginal politics with all its fevered, up-the-rhetorical-ante language. He had a lovely expression–shut-up money–to describe the endless inquiries, consultations, studies etc. that attend aboriginal activism with all the predictable mea culpas and vows to do better that our politicians respond to them with. His point was that it all does little to improve life in their communities. I don’t know that I’m terribly bothered that they used the word genocide, but did they really need three years and a hundred million to get there?

“I suspect many of these Conservatives would feel differently if it was their white ancestors who were given disease laden blankets to kill them off ”

Hundreds of years ago, in a different country and, despite all the many stories and anecdotes, only ONE documented incident of it actually happening (Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania, 1763)…and with no evidence that it even worked.

” I would love to tell Gord et al what I really at I really think of them.”

(the phrase “be careful what you wish for” comes immediately to mind, as does “don’t bite off more than you can chew”…)

If you have a legitimate, defensible argument to make, then by all means make it.

I actually fear adoption of the term genocide will negatively impact many of the positive recommendations in the report. By stating this is an ongoing genocide, my understanding is that there are specific international treaty obligations that could necessitate international intervention, Now I don’t think this will result in an invasion, it burdens us in that debate, rather than moving forward toward tangible and meaningful actions to better the lives of First Nation’s people who have been unfairly marginalized and oppressed for much of our Nation’s history

I’m betting Trudeau finally resorted to using the word Genocide, when his PMO twinkies pointed out to him that our drive-by journos would focus on that word ad nauseaum, thus sidetracking from any other messages he wanted to get out during this pre-election run up. It’s what our lazy dandy lions of the media do.
Months & millions of dollars ago, I echoed on here Rona Ambrose’s warning that this would accomplish very little and the report would end up gathering dust on shelves, with all those similar, that millions of trees died for, while
LPC-friendly lawyers, lobbyists and consultants got rich from the exercise.
I stand by that prediction.

You know government and their operatives/stakeholders far too well. I gave up counting how many governments were supposed to put the axe in the Indian Act and abolish CIRNAC/ISC and simply start over with First Nations’ management in charge.

Sure, plenty of Liberals and others got rich but that’s but a symptom of generalized governmental incompetence on this file. Doesn’t matter which party — they are ALL responsible.